eli brooks does a good zavier simpson impression

[Shirt? Shirt!]

3/17/2022 – Michigan 75, Colorado State 63 – 18-14, 11-9 Big Ten, Round of 32.
3/19/2022 – Michigan 76, Tennessee 68 – 19-14, 11-9 Big Ten, Sweet 16.

This year played out like a message board hypothetical. You know, the one where a guy posts something like "would you trade a win over OSU and Big Ten championship in football for a disappointing bubble season from the #4 ranked basketball team?" You're like "ehhhhh… okay" because the universe doesn't work like that. And then maybe the universe does work like that.

Perhaps there is a maximum amount of swag to go around and whatever barrels football tapped as they pumped it up this fall came from Michigan's strategic reserve. Or maybe we've got Zavier Simpson in a basement with tubes sprouting from him like so many spring clovers.

ELI BROOKS WITH THE SKY HOOK 😱

The Wolverines can taste the #Sweet16@umichbball #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/UuR0UjW2cE

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 19, 2022

I will walk away from this particular Omelas in three weeks, tops. Promise.

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As a person who lives in Ann Arbor and gets asked "what do you do for a living" with some frequency, I have a lot of experience with people being weird or dismissive about sports. Ann Arbor is the archetype of a liberal college town, of course, so anyone who doesn't already know who I am is almost certain to fall on the Sportsball Continuum. On the nice end of this continuum are people who apologize to me for not knowing anything about sports; on the not so nice end are people who actually deploy the world "sportsball." I have had many interactions with people who are puzzled or irritated that I am a guy who does the sports liking.

Sometimes I have tried to explain myself, or at least thought about what I would say if anyone seemed interested in an explanation. (For reasons likely related to cultural ubiquity, Sportsball Continuum people evince a profound lack of interest in why anyone would be off the continuum.) What I've come up with is this: sports aren't just numbers adding up over a set period of time. They are story machines.

One of the great delights of college sports is that the timeframes are generally long enough to see a player become what they're going to become and short enough that there is always someone new to see develop. The pros are more static, with colossi (Brady, Lebron, Baseball Man) bestriding the sport for a decade or more. In college whenever someone hits that they're gone and you've got to see what the freshman with dreadlocks might be up to. The stories are more than Who Is The Goatest, Skip?

These stories exist on various levels: players. Seasons. Programs. This game wrote down some history on all of these levels. It provided the definitive Eli Brooks Game for the longest-serving player in program history. It rewrote this disappointing season, at least somewhat. It reinforced the vibe around Michigan basketball—and unfortunately for Tennessee fans, reinforced the vibe around their program as well. This Jonathan Wilson passage I referenced after the USA-Algeria World Cup game always floats up at times like these:

Perhaps some of the Europeans there – certainly the French journalist opposite – were driven by anti-German feeling, perhaps some were instinctive Slavophiles, but when the three locals at the MTN (South Africa-based mobile telecommunications company) desk reacted to the final whistle with a group hug and collective dance, the appeal of Serbia's inner turmoil becomes difficult to deny. Unless they'd had a bet, I suppose, but when asked one said he'd decided to support Serbia because "they seemed to be trying to lose".

This is an intimately familiar feeling for any basketball fan, but it must be completely unintelligible to the Sportsball Continuum people. Explaining is difficult. Maybe it's less difficult now?

Now I can just say "Imagine that a fifth-year player everyone wanted to run off campus because he seemed terrified of basketball appropriated the delightfully weird shot a previous player—one denied a career culmination by covid—had painstakingly developed over the course of a few years; imagine that this one-time wilting flower of a player would uncork an audacious hook shot at a crucial juncture to defeat a heavily favored opponent, thus writing himself into annals of program history. If you were invested in this sort of thing, watching the maturation and development of this young man would not just be a guy hitting a shot, but the climax of a character arc. It's like Game of Thrones except the source material never runs out. Once you have the context that gives the numbers meaning the drama outstrips any planned fiction. Joy and pathos intermingle. We reach down into the vast beating heart of human striving and drink deeply of its nectar.

"Also sometimes Wisconsin shoots 9% from three."

This would not work because the other person would wander away and talk to someone else about organic hummus brands, but I could do it.

Michigan is in the Sweet 16, just like we all predicted back in October. It took a strange, bizarre, and often frustrating path, but the heart and mettle of this Michigan Men's Basketball team cannot be doubted now. For the second straight game in the NCAA Tournament, they responded to adversity, clawing back during a game that seemed to be slipping away, executing in the big moments, and pulling out a win that was surprisingly comfortable on the scoreboard against a higher seed. The 11th seeded Wolverines downed the 3rd seeded Tennessee Volunteers this afternoon in Indianapolis 76-68. Off to San Antonio and the second weekend. 

The first half started promising for Michigan. They got out to a 10-2 lead in the first three minutes off the backs of a couple triples and generally held the lead throughout the first half. Michigan played solid defense, made a few timely shots, and were competing hard. The Wolverines led 30-24 with 4:50 to go in the first half before a late collapse began. Michigan scored just two points after that point and began to turn the ball over on nearly every other possession. Mixed in was a comical missed layup by Moussa Diabate after he declined to dunk an easy bucket, one of several massive mistakes in the late first half.

Michigan went into the half down 37-32, a result most Michigan fans would've taken before the game began, yet it still felt disappointing. The Wolverines shot 44% from the field (higher than Tennessee) in the first half, and went 4/9 from three, but the nine turnovers were costly, especially when they piled up at the end of the half. Tennessee didn't create many great looks, but they had an athleticism advantage at guard when DeVante' Jones was on the floor, and also boasted solid shotmaking in knocking down buckets from the long two range. 

[Zoey Holmstrom]

Two changes came after halftime. First off, DeVante' Jones was ruled out for the game due to an ailment, which forced Frankie Collins to play more at guard. Secondly, a crucial change came to the team strategy, when Juwan Howard switched to zone. As with any zone defense, a primary way to beat such a scheme is to shoot over it. Though Tennessee remained decent on those midrange looks, they were drier than the Sahara desert from three point range, while the schematic change helped to mitigate some of the athletic disadvantages Michigan was facing defensively. It didn't restore the good times yet, though, as Tennessee had the upper hand through much of the second half. They'd go up a few, then Michigan would come back to tie it, before Tennessee would charge ahead again. 

The turning point of the contest came with under eight minutes remaining. Jo Jo James split a pair at the line to make it 60-54 Tennessee and quickly got the ball back. Eli Brooks responded with a steal and then began to will Michigan forward himself. The wily veteran made a jumper and a layup on the next two possessions to cut it back within two points. More importantly: Michigan turned the defensive pressure up, Tennessee couldn't throw a rock in the ocean, and as a result, the Vols scored two points over a nearly five minute stretch that began at that mark of the game. 

Michigan trailed 60-58 after Brooks' personal 4-0 spurt, and then Terrance Williams II stepped up. Over the span of a minute, Williams would crash the offensive glass with purpose and finish a loose ball after a missed shot twice. Tennessee added a bucket in between, but that left the score at 62-62 with only four minutes to go. Brooks took the ball and drove to the basket, making contact with with a defender. The ball went through the hoop and a foul was called... on Tennessee. Brooks swished the and-one free throw and Michigan led 65-62 with 3:21to go. 

[Zoey Holmstrom]

Kennedy Chandler knocked down another midrange jumper to trim it to one, and then Dickinson was fouled while posting up. He went 1/2 at the line and then Michigan put together a strong defensive possession that ended with Williams snagging a defensive rebound and drawing a foul. Williams went to the free throw line, facing down a one-and-one and a weakness that had haunted him in his career... free throws. Williams rattled the first one down, and swished the second. 68-64 Michigan. 

Eli Brooks then locked in defensively, with a brilliant stop that forced a shot clock violation, giving Michigan the ball with 1:38 to go. Disaster then struck on the in-bounds pass, as Williams delivered it to Brooks, who was quickly cornered. Brooks made weak contact with a Volunteers player, and the ball dribbled off himself and out of bounds. Turnover. Caleb Houstan was torched on the ensuing possession, and Tennessee's Santiago Vescovi converted on a layup. 68-66 with 1:28 left. 

Michigan took the ball down the floor and ran the shot clock down. With the time ticking down and desperation setting in, the Wolverines turned to the veteran Eli Brooks yet again. He dribbled down towards the baseline and in Zavier Simpson fashion, connected on an improbable hook shot with 53.6 left. 70-66 Michigan.

On the following trip down the floor, a Ziegler three pointer for Tennessee popped out, Dickinson got the rebound, passed to Brooks, who drew the foul. In the double bonus, Brooks swished both guaranteed free throws, and Michigan led 72-66 with only 36.2 left. Tennessee got a tip-in to cut the lead back to four, but Moussa Diabate (a shaky free throw shooter himself) did his part in the free throw contest, making both, which restored the lead to six with only 23 seconds left. After Chandler missed a layup and Dickinson snagged the defensive board, the game was over. A couple free throws followed and we had a final score. 76-68 Michigan. Sweet 16 Bound. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Click for a few short takes]

Michigan stuffed Wisconsin's 11th-ranked KenPom offense into a trash can on Tuesday. The Badgers shot 11-for-37 on two-pointers, got to the line only six times, and recorded eight assists against ten turnovers. Of their 12 offensive rebounds, five were the knocked-out-of-bounds team rebound variety, which doesn't pose any putback danger. They went stretches of 6:37 and 7:26 without scoring—that's getting blanked out for 35% of the game.

The Wolverines laughed at the idea of potential mismatches. A big guard against M's small backcourt? Brad Davison posted up Mike Smith on UW's second possession, hurled up a brick, and proceeded to go 1-for-8 for two points, his lowest scoring output in almost a year and the third-worst game of his four-year career by O-Rating. D'Mitrik Trice scored five points in the first three minutes, then two more for the rest of the half, and the Badgers were down 33 points by the time he got on the board in the second.

The primary worry heading into the game was that Hunter Dickinson would have trouble with a pair of legit stretch fives. Wisconsin's center duo of Micah Potter and Nate Reuvers combined for 16 points on 7/20 shooting with zero trips to the line, zero assists, and five turnovers. So much for that.

Michigan boasts the nation's #1 two-point defense and are tenth in KenPom's adjusted defensive efficiency. Using the Wisconsin game as a lens, let's look at how Juwan Howard has created this monster.

You Can't Run

Scoring on the fast break is obviously easier than scoring in halfcourt. A team can get a lot of their defensive work done early by getting back. This has to be demoralizing:

Michigan gets back. Wisconsin scored two fast break points on Tuesday even though they recorded four steals. I need a college stats site to start tracking chasedown blocks:

The plays that don't show up in the highlight reel are even more important than the Tayshaun-on-Reggie moments. Despite often holding massive leads, they've had very few lapses. Only 3.3% of initial opponent field goal attempts against Michigan occur in the first ten seconds of the shot clock following a made Wolverines basket, the fifth-best mark among high-major teams, per hoop-math. They communicate, find their matchups, and don't lollygag.

The team's size and versatility helps too; if, for example, Dickinson is caught upcourt after a tough finish, Wagner can be there to pick up the opposing center for a few seconds while the team settles back into their matchups. When teams attack cross-matches early in the shot clock, they find it tough to score. Here's Chaundee Brown forcing Nate Reuvers into a tough fadeaway:

It would've been better for Wisconsin if Reuvers had given that up instead of forcing the action. That often happens against Michigan. According to Synergy, M faces transition possessions only 12.6% of the time, the fourth-lowest rate in the Big Ten, a conference not exactly known for permitting easy fast break buckets.

[Hit THE JUMP before someone blocks it.]